Trippin': New York City - Subway

So guess what? I'm doing this post on Miss Antsylily's comp right now as she's trying to put little Bill Jr. down for a nap. Since I have this thing about super organizing my vacay fotos, I put all the fotos that had anything to do with being in the subway together, and by date of course. Haha. Riding the subway isn't too bad but it can be very confusing at times. Each ride is $2.50 but you have several options. You can buy a week pass, a day pass, or like a multi-day pass. Or, in our case, the best thing to do was to buy four rides and get one free kinda deal. Cos we knew we wouldn't be riding all that much and simply spoiled ourselves by simply hailing a cab. There was gonna be at least four of us at all times so we just took turns paying. Most of the subway stations were pretty decent except for the ones located in the shady parts of town. There was one in particular that we were going to that was pretty bad. It was a hot afternoon and right when I got to the entrance of the station, I took a big whiff of some seriously stanky and concentrated URINE, and started gagging. I quickly backed the hell up and told everyone that there was no way I was going to make it down there. Hellz to the N-O. So we took a taxi. I wish I had known it was gonna be that bad. We could of taken a taxi a lot sooner since we had to walk like ten blocks to get to that stupid station. Argh! But other than that, they weren't as disgusting as some people made it seem.

Birthday: MyLinh

The world's most perfect couple finally left their genetic imprint with the birth of their perfect baby girl. It's a hapa baby. If you watched last week's ANTM you would know that hapa is a Hawaiian term used to describe a person of mixed race, usually with Asian. I paid a little visit to MyLinh and her mommy early last month and being the bad influence that I am, I brought mommy some milk tea tapioca. Grandma would have been pretty mad if she found out! Haha. OH-EM-JEE MyLinh is soooooo CUTE! And fracking WHITE! We all assumed that papa's white genes would get flushed out by the Asian gene, but nope! Not in this case. MyLinh mos def looks like daddy. Mascara showed me pics of Transam when he was a baby and she is the spitting image of him. Seeing Mascara carrying MyLinh, one would think that this mommy has kidnapped this poor baby! Mascara even jokes that she just tells people that she's the baby's nanny. MyLinh mostly slept while I was there but that was absolutely fine by me! I get freaked out when a baby starts crying while I'm holding them. Ack! You wouldn't believe how amazing Mascara looks after a mere WEEKS of giving birth. I could only hope to be as lucky.

And look how awesome Mascara is. She sent ME flowers when I should have been the one sending HER flowers! Haha. The tulips she sent were just gorgeous. I loved the color of them. I must say, I think that was the very first time someone ever sent me flowers. Very cool feeling indeedy.

Musik Mundi: Train

Somewhere in ukulele land, Jason Mraz is kicking and screaming that this song doesn't belong to him. Train's latest single out on the waves is Hey, Soul Sister and I looooove the song. I can't stop myself from singing along every time I hear the part where Patrick Monahan is all hey, hey, heeeeeey, heeeeeey. I've never liked any of their stuff until now. The band is from San Francisco. Oh how I would love to visit San Francisco! Anyhow. Listening to this song makes me want to have a chill out day with good friends while swinging back and forth in a hammock. Perfecto.

*photo courtesy of amazon.com*


Train
Album: Save Me, San Francisco (2009)
Song: Hey, Soul Sister

Trippin': New York City - Morimoto

88 10th Ave,
New York, NY 10011

Here we go again with the eights. Asians consider either eight or nine to be the lucky number. Crazy numerology beliefs. But in any case, our one expensive dinner was had at the one and only Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's NYC restaurant, Morimoto. It's located near the Meatpacking District and the entrance really stands out with the red drapery. The design of the restaurant is very modern. There's like a bar and lounge downstairs where they scoot you off to since your table probably won't be ready when it's supposed to. So of course we headed downstairs and treated ourselves to some super expensive drinks. One thing that impressed me was that the hostess's there remembers everyone who has checked in with them. When our table was ready, the girl came down the stairs and walked right up to us and asked us to follow her. No roll call like your typical restaurant. AND, the bartender automatically transferred our tab to our table. Clockwork! While reading up on the place on yelp, most people said that they weren't allowed to order the omakase unless everyone at the table ordered it. Well, we were lucky enough to be the exception for some reason. So we ordered only one omakase ($120) and a smattering of other items. Maybe that's why Morimoto didn't stop by our table. YES! He was indeed there that night. And we asked our waiter to ask him if he could stop by our table so that we could get a foto with him. But NOPE. The guy never came by. Boo! It's okay Mr. Morimoto, I blame our crappy waiter who was too good looking for his own good. The food was DELISH! I can't believe it was that expensive but you could tell they spend a lot of time and work in making sure each dish is perfect.

Toro tartare. We actually ended having two of these cos I didn't know that one would come with the omakase so I had ordered another one. The toro tartare is smeared onto the slab of bamboo and there were these scraping utensils that you use to pick up some tuna and dress it with one of the six sides. There were chives, wasabi, creme fraiche, dashi-soy, osetra caviar and these corn nut looking things.

Morimoto sashimi. Layers of seared toro, salmon, eel, tuna and hamachi with a side of five sauces in little plastic transfer pipettes.

Morimoto has his own beer! Actually, it's an ale.

I forgot what this was. But it's some type of fish. I can't even remember if it was raw or not.

Pork gyoza with garlic chives, tomato and creme fraiche. The actual pork gyoza's are underneath that layer of pan-fried rice paper looking thing.

Wagyu beef carpaccio in yuzu soy, ginger and sweet garlic. Everyone loved this, except for me of course.

I forgot what this was.

I also can't remember what this was, but I do remember that the sauce was very Vietnamese. Almost like the sauce in ca kho tho.

The assortment of sushi. I hate that all omakase's have to come with the sushi. Not worth it!

Salmon and toro sashimi and a spicy tuna roll.

This is a shot of something that is supposed to help cleanse the palate before eating the next dish.

I think this was the whole roasted lobster epice in garam masala and lemon creme fraiche.

The desserts. Sorry, memory lapse once again and nothing on the menu looks familiar. I didn't particularly like either of the desserts but I do love a nicely sculptured canal.

I managed to get a foto of the back of Morimoto as he stood and chatted with this one table for a LOOOONG time. So jealous. I like how he's in shorts. That's awesome. Haha. The women's restroom is all white except for the infinity mirror decorated with sakuras behind the toilet.